When Song Laosan heard Xu Le use that strange method to determine that the zombie was not in the surrounding area, he asked, "Since you can use this method to detect the zombie's aura, can you use it to track the zombie's location?"

"Yes, but there are limitations."

Xu Le nodded: "This thing can only search a small area around us, there are no fixed restrictions. I can roughly sense the boundary, so there's nothing wrong with this valley."

Hearing Xu Le say that, our tense nerves finally relaxed a bit.

Although everyone came to catch zombies, they all had some fear of the unknown dangers.

Led by the old bear, we made our way along the valley, carefully searching our surroundings.

"Whoosh!"

As we walked, a large group of rats suddenly scurried out of the bushes ahead, startling everyone in the quiet environment.

The monkey watched the plump rats scurrying about, kicking one that came near him away: "How come the rats in this deep forest are all so big? They look like they could eat people!"

"The rats in the forest are like vultures; they really do grow up eating carrion! You all need to be careful. The rats in the mountains aren't afraid of people, and they'll even attack if they're startled."

Old Bear used his torch to scare away the rats around him and walked toward the bushes from which they had run: "So many rats gathered here means there are corpses around, which are very likely the sheep we are looking for."

I kicked a rat away and said, "There's no water source here, and no trails left by animals. No hunter would set a trap here. Let's all huddle together back to back and be careful not to get bitten by these giant rats."

As soon as he finished speaking, we all formed a circle and began to follow Old Bear into the woods.

There were more rats around than we had imagined. Most of them ran away when we approached, but some of them attacked.

After I kicked and stomped on seven or eight rats along the way, the old bear in front of me stopped and said, "Found it, it's here!"

I turned slightly to the side and looked at the grass in front of the old bear.

About two meters ahead of us, there was a carcass that looked like a dead sheep.

The reason it is described as similar is that the corpse was no longer recognizable, with broken bones and flesh scattered all over the ground. Its identity could only be deduced from the scattered hair nearby.

The monkey looked at the shattered bones and flesh, sniffed, and said, "Damn, these rats have pretty good teeth! If we had come any later, there wouldn't be a hair left in this place."

"Uncle Xiong, wait!"

Seeing that Old Xiong was about to go forward to investigate, I immediately stopped him: "Something's not right here!"

Xu Le observed his surroundings for a moment, then did some quick calculations with his fingers: "I don't sense any unusual aura around me?"

"I can't sense any of those things you're talking about. I just think the terrain here is a bit strange."

I stepped on the grass next to me and said, "The grass here is very fragile; you can leave a mark with just one step. But look around that sheep; all the grass is standing up."

"Oh, that's really true!"

The monkey held up a torch and shone it behind us: "I'm wondering why all the grass has been trampled down along the way, leaving very clear tracks."

Old Song interjected, "Sheep walk on their hooves, so their contact area with the ground is relatively small. Naturally, the tracks they leave are not as obvious as those left by so many of us. If we go over and check, we might find something."

I turned my gaze to Xu Le: "Uncle Xiong and I will go over there. You guys stay where you are. The traces in front are not obvious to begin with. If more people go there, it will be easier to destroy the scene."

After getting to know me, Xu Le could tell that I had a lot of experience in wilderness survival. He nodded and said, "We don't have experience with these things, so we'll listen to you."

After saying that, Uncle Xiong and I crept towards the corpse in front of us.

With each step, we carefully examined the ground around us, afraid of missing or damaging anything.

The ground ahead was littered with body parts, emitting a distinctive, pungent odor of internal organs.

Old Xiong walked over, squatted down, and picked up a clump of soil: "The ground here is very damp. It's impossible for an adult goat to walk on it without leaving a trace, but there are no goat footprints around here."

"The soil here is indeed very soft; even mouse paw prints can be left here. But there's no reason for this sheep to appear out of thin air."

I gently pressed the hilt of my knife against the ground beside me and saw the dent it left. I asked Old Bear, "Uncle Bear, you said there are pig-faced bats in these mountains. What do they do when they feed? Do they snatch their prey into the air like a hawk and then drop it to its death?"

"The time I saw pig-faced bats, they were crawling on their prey and sucking their blood. They all ran away when they heard a sound. I haven't seen those things since then."

Old Bear paused for a moment: "I don't think it's very likely that the thing will kill its prey by falling. After all, bats are for sucking blood. If they drop their prey from a high place and it lands on a rock or something, and an artery is damaged, it will bleed out in just one or two minutes. How will they eat then?"

I squatted down and used my knife to poke at the piece of meat on the ground: "That's strange. This meat is whitish in color, and it doesn't look like it was hunted by a wild beast. Instead, it looks like it was slaughtered artificially and bled. This means that the sheep's blood had been drained before it was eaten by rats."

Hearing our conversation, Xu Le said from the side, "Aren't there still two sheep carcasses that haven't been found? Since we haven't found them here, should we continue searching for other places and see if we can find anything?"

I nodded, and just as I was about to speak, I heard a muffled "thump".

We, who were originally preparing to retreat, were all drawn by the sound and looked in the direction to our right.

"Bang!"

Before I could figure out where the sound was coming from, another muffled thud came from the left.

The tallest plants in our area were only about 1.5 meters tall. I heard a series of muffled thuds and yelled, "Watch out for what's above you!"

The only lighting tools we had were torches, which, when raised, could only illuminate the surrounding area and could not illuminate the sky.

Just as I reached for the flashlight, Old Bear's headlamp was already up there: "Pig-faced bat!"

I looked in the direction of the light and saw many dark shadows in the air above us, along with the carcasses of many large rats falling down with a clatter.

"Bang!"

I saw a rat's carcass smashed against a rock. The skin was torn open, but no blood splattered out. I immediately understood the situation: "These bats don't kill their prey by smashing it and then sucking its blood. Instead, they drain the blood and then discard the prey!"

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